There are
many who feel that Cricket is an easy game to play. That it does not require
much skill, that it is very boring. They prefer the tempo of football, the
agility of badminton or the cerebral power of Chess to this.
How
mistaken they are.
Take Test
Cricket for instance. Assuming an average player spends half the duration of
the match on the field, a cricketer spends as much time on the field in ONE
TEST MATCH as a footballer spends in almost 12 matches.
Add more
dimensions to this.
The
conditions vary by the day. It could be sunny one day and rainy the other.
The pitch
varies by city, by country and by season. More importantly, by the day.
The ball
changes from the new to the old and the tricks its plays changes by over.
Now add the
variants – test, ODI and T20. Each format is a different ball game, literally
and figuratively.
For a
cricketer to succeed, he needs to triumph over the conditions and then over the
competition.
A player
who can do well in all formats in all conditions is like a decathlete- a
superior jack of all trades. But, no decathlete has ever beaten a world record
in any individual sport.
In Cricket,
most players are good in A format. Not good across formats. They are individual
format champions not across format champions.
And, that
is what separates Virat Kohli from everyone else. While the world finds it
difficult to digest his unreal, surreal streak and celebrates his 10000 runs
and insatiable appetite for runs, what really marks him apart is his winning
across countries, across formats.
He is the
number 1 test batsman, no 1 ODI batsman and the batsman with the highest T20 I
average for someone who has played more than 50 matches.
This is
incredible. It is like Usain Bolt holding the world record in the 100 Meter
sprint, 1500 Metre race and the marathon, that too simultaneously,
In the two
series where India travelled abroad recently (SA and England), Kohli was the
top scorer, period. He scored more than any English player did in England and
more than any South African in SA.
This is
akin to Federer beating Nadal in the French open, not once but over a period of
time. Unimaginable, right?
The other
aspect of Cricket is that it is an individual versus a team. As an example, in
Tennis, on the court, it a A player versus another player. In Football, on the
field, it is A player versus a few defenders. In Cricket, it is A batsman,
pitted against an entire team.
In this era
of IOT, every shot that has been played by Kohli would have been analysed by every
team.
Yet, yet.
No team has been able to silence the King. This in itself tells you how great
the King is.
On another
note, my son, an avid cricket fan and a big Kohli devotee said he was tired of
changing his passwords. When asked why, he said that he had pegged his password
on Kohli’s centuries. In the last few months, he has had to change it so many
times that he has changed his format.
Bowlers,
statisticians, commentators – they must be tiring in a similar way win catching
up with this phenomenon.
In many
ways, he is India’s jewel. Let us revel in its luster while it shines. May we
pray that it shines for a long time.
